The writing seemed to be on the wall (especially with my Retrospect Brand Spectacles) in the spring when various tools surged with the work from home shift. At first I thought for sure Slack will skyrocket, but month after month it didn’t seem to be catching the same wave. One take I’ve heard was that they missed the importance of video, which I have trouble taking wholesale but I think there’s some truth there. For me, a daily Slacker jumping between 5 client teams in addition to my own, video was one of many Slack features that felt perpetually unfinished. They made a great start in video but it never matured, and there’s something about Slack that’s felt trapped in its original form. Major new features settle into a corner (video) or a mostly working bolted on status (threads), and it couldn’t find its mark for the second act that I think it deserved.
Beyond Slack the lesson is what Levie says: distribution. Teams felt like a poser to anyone who had used Slack, and most of the world hadn’t. The power of bundling into something as omnipresent as Office just can’t be underestimated. 27B is no bad exit and there are worse homes than Salesforce. However it turns out I have huge respect for Stewart and even if I don’t adore what he built, I do adore how he built it. Every sentiment in that open letter speaks to an ethos of doing things well and being proud. I hope he is proud.
It would be interesting to have Casey revisit this assessment today, 5 quarters later.
The writing seemed to be on the wall (especially with my Retrospect Brand Spectacles) in the spring when various tools surged with the work from home shift. At first I thought for sure Slack will skyrocket, but month after month it didn’t seem to be catching the same wave. One take I’ve heard was that they missed the importance of video, which I have trouble taking wholesale but I think there’s some truth there. For me, a daily Slacker jumping between 5 client teams in addition to my own, video was one of many Slack features that felt perpetually unfinished. They made a great start in video but it never matured, and there’s something about Slack that’s felt trapped in its original form. Major new features settle into a corner (video) or a mostly working bolted on status (threads), and it couldn’t find its mark for the second act that I think it deserved.
Beyond Slack the lesson is what Levie says: distribution. Teams felt like a poser to anyone who had used Slack, and most of the world hadn’t. The power of bundling into something as omnipresent as Office just can’t be underestimated. 27B is no bad exit and there are worse homes than Salesforce. However it turns out I have huge respect for Stewart and even if I don’t adore what he built, I do adore how he built it. Every sentiment in that open letter speaks to an ethos of doing things well and being proud. I hope he is proud.